


The Science of Back-Scratching

by mithrel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alchemy, Blanket Permission, Cooking, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Magic, Nightmares, Podfic Welcome, Wing Kink, Wingfic, bottom!Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-02
Updated: 2010-08-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 14:00:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithrel/pseuds/mithrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel finds himself in trouble, and gets help from an unlikely source.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Science of Back-Scratching

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zekkass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zekkass/gifts).



> Written for zekkass for the spnrarepairs exchange. Includes temporarily powerless Gabriel and wing!porn. Betaed by my partner-in-crime krystalicekitsu.

Gabriel glares around him. More than a thousand years on the run and it hadn’t been angels that caught him but fucking _demons._

They’d had hoses connected to tanks of holy oil (and how demons got access to that much holy oil was a question he’d very much like answered). It hadn’t had the same effect when they’d hosed him down as if he’d been in a circle of it, but it disoriented him enough that they’d been able to overpower him and transport him…here.

It looks like an abandoned barn (seriously, what was it with abandoned barns and shady rituals? It’s not like there were that many of them around). He’s confined in a circle of burning holy oil about three feet across, but that isn’t what worries him.

Beyond the oil are symbols he hasn’t seen for two hundred years. He racks his brains, thinking back to the alchemists he’d dealt with, obsessed with turning lead into gold, most of them high on quicksilver fumes and mad as hatters.

It comes back to him, slowly, and he feels an unfamiliar sense of _oh **shit**_ slither into his stomach.

This isn’t a spell any alchemist would ever use, or even know, for all that they’re alchemical symbols. There’s the symbol for winter, an arc with several dots underneath it, with the triangle with a circle inside it that represents water next to it. His season, his element. Just beyond is the left-facing crescent symbolizing silver and the moon, still more symbols associated with him. There’s the symbols for “take” and “decompose,” and a symbol that he’s never seen before, two jagged lines that look like wings with a circle between them at the top.

Another demon walks in, her dark hair swaying on her shoulders. She looks like the type Gabriel might’ve had some fun with, but her true form is all too evident and it turns his stomach. She smirks at him. “Comfy?”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, such language,” she tuts at him. “What would your daddy say if he heard you? Not that he’s around to hear anything anymore.”

Gabriel feels his fists clenching in rage and relaxes them with an effort, letting them hang loose at his sides. “What do you want from me?”

She smiles slowly, a snake’s smile, and Gabriel feels the slide of ice down his spine again. “Lucifer would be happy to know we took care of one of his brothers.”

“You can’t kill me.” They’d have to come inside the holy oil to try and he could gank them easily, since there wasn’t room for more than one demon at a time in the circle. He knows that, but his muscles still tense up for a flight that’s impossible.

She smiles. “Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, we wouldn’t. Lucifer’s sentimental. He might take it amiss if we killed his family. But we can’t have a loose cannon running around, particularly not one with the power of an archangel. So we’ll just…negate it.”

“You can’t take my Grace,” he protests, but the thread of ice is full-on panic now.

“You think?” She throws her arms up and starts chanting. “ _Adimo tē grātiam, exhaurio tē grātiam…_ ” The symbols around him glow red.

Gabriel feels his Grace stirring for the first time in a long time. As she keeps chanting he feels it draining out of him, no matter how he tries to keep hold of it. He staggers, but manages to keep his feet.

The chanting stops suddenly and he looks up to see the demon who’d confined him staring at a man in the doorway. He smirks at her. “Hello, darling.”

“ _You!_ What are you doing here you trai–”

Before she can finish the man moves behind her, his hand over his mouth. “Ah, ah. Wouldn’t want your friends to be alarmed now, would we?” And before Gabriel can register it, he slits her throat, then jerks her head back, snapping her neck.

He collapses completely then, not caring what’s going on. He hears a snort, then a hiss as the fire goes out and arms are suddenly pulling at him.

“Come on, mate, up you get.”

Gabriel resists. This is a demon, has to be a demon. He can’t tell just by looking anymore, which is disturbing on so many levels, but… “You’re a demon.”

“And you’re in no position to be choosy about your rescuer. Come on, she’ll be up in a moment!”

Before Gabriel can reply they’re moving. It only takes a moment but it grates on his skin, since the space they travel through is different than the one he used as an angel, wrong somehow.

He wobbles when they land and the demon snorts again. “Should’ve bent your knees.”

Gabriel pushes away from him angrily, dimly registering that he’s in some sort of room. He staggers again and almost falls, before the demon grabs him and pushes him into a chair. “For God’s sake, sit down before you fall down!”

Gabriel glares feebly at him for daring to take God’s name in vain in front of an archangel. Or…well…

“Why are you helping me?” he asks after a moment.

The demon shrugs. “Enemy of my enemy and all that.”

At Gabriel’s look he continues, “Let’s just say a month ago I took a calculated risk and it blew up in my face. Now Lucifer wants me dead.”

“So why are you helping me?”

“I have a pretty good idea of what they’d do to you.”

Gabriel scoffs.

The demon sighs and looks put-upon. “ _Fine,_ I figured if I did an archangel a good turn he could get them off my back! This is the fifth hideout I’ve had in a month!”

Gabriel manages a grin. Enlightened self-interest. He can deal with that. Still…

“It doesn’t look like I’ll be doing much of anything anymore,” he mutters, sagging again.

The demon brushes him off. “Oh, it’ll be reversible; these things are always reversible. We just need to figure out how.”

“Oh sure, Grace gets taken away all the time,” Gabriel snorts. “No problem to reverse it.”

“Trust me.”

Gabriel laughs at that. “You’re a demon, of course I don’t trust you!” He thinks of something suddenly. “What’s your name?”

The demon slaps his forehead lightly with the heel of his hand. “Haven’t I introduced myself? I’m not usually so ill-mannered, but extraordinary circumstances and all.” He holds out a hand. “Name’s Crowley.”

Gabriel looks at the hand, then pointedly back at Crowley, who smirks at him and takes his hand back.

“I’m Gabriel.”

As he speaks the name the creeping tide of loss that he’s been trying to stave off overwhelms him. Gabriel. He hasn’t been Gabriel for more than a thousand years, and now he never will be again. He starts shaking uncontrollably.

“Oh for–”

The demon–Crowley–helps him up again and takes him into a bedroom. He flicks the covers down with a gesture and pushes Gabriel down into the bed, the covers pulling themselves over him. “Stay.”

 _Like I’m going anywhere like this,_ Gabriel thinks, but he doesn’t have the energy to talk.

Crowley’s back in a moment, holding a glass. “Drink this. Slowly.”

Gabriel takes a drink and splutters. He’s been around long enough to recognize brandy when he tastes it.

“Not as good as I once had access to of course,” the demon says, but Gabriel doesn’t care.

He drinks the entire glass down. It makes him dizzy, which would be disturbing if it didn’t also numb the pain.

He puts the glass down and studies his erstwhile rescuer. Crowley looks human, middle-aged, dark hair, wearing what was probably a nice suit in a previous life.

The bedroom he’s in is small but clean, single bed, bedside table, small window covered by curtains, a throw rug near the bed.

“Get some sleep. You’re still in shock. We’ll start looking up a reversal tomorrow.”

“Where are you going to sleep?” Do demons sleep? He doesn’t know.

The demon grins. “I wouldn’t dream of taking advantage of you in your condition…well, I would, but it wouldn’t be polite. I’ll kip on the couch.”

And he leaves. Gabriel stares for a moment, but the trauma of losing his Grace combines with the alcohol to pull him under.

***

_A dark place. He’s cold. He tries to move somewhere else, but he can’t move, can’t zap away. He tries to warm the air around him, but nothing happens._

_As a last resort he unfurls his wings and wraps them around himself. They cast a faint light and he can see that he’s in a dank cave, barely large enough to stand in. There’s a glimmer at his feet and he looks down. It’s a feather, glowing dimly. As he picks it up it goes out. Another lands beside it, and another. The light from his wings is growing fainter as his feathers fall out. His breath starts coming in short pants._

_He claws at the walls. He has to get out, get_ away…

There are hands on his shoulders, shaking him. He fights them off, screaming.

“Would you _shut up?!_ People are trying to sleep!”

He snaps out of it to see Crowley glaring at him.

“Ah, welcome back,” the demon smirks, letting go of him.

“What happened?” Gabriel asks muzzily.

“I was woken up from a perfectly serviceable sleep by someone screaming bloody murder, that’s what happened!” The tone is exasperated, but something about the demon’s eyes tells him he doesn’t really mean it.

“Sorry.”

Crowley only mutters something he doesn’t catch and walks out of the room.

A nightmare. He’d had a _nightmare._ He’d never dreamed before and that was his first one. It wasn’t fair. He tries to shake off the lingering sense of dread still clutching at him.

Crowley’s back in a minute with an armful of blankets, which he throws on the floor. Gabriel stares. “What are you doing?”

“Look,” Crowley says, with an air of long-suffering patience, “If I’m going to be woken up by screaming I’d much rather be able to take two steps, slap you across the face and go back to bed than slog in from the other room every time.”

Gabriel blinks and nods. It makes sense. “OK.”

“Try not to wake me up again, would you? I need my beauty sleep.”

Gabriel snorts.

***

He does wake Crowley up again before the night’s over, but after that he sleeps more or less peacefully.

In the morning Gabriel wakes up, takes in the fact that he _has_ woken up, and lies there trying to figure out what’s going on. When he remembers he groans.

His Grace is _gone_. For all intents and purposes he’s human, and dependent on a demon to boot. It’s humiliating. On top of everything, his stomach is growling. He groans again.

“I’m hungry.”

Crowley stirs. “Good morning to you too. I’ll make breakfast.”

“No, you don’t get it. I’m _hungry._ I don’t _get_ hungry!”

“Apparently now your Grace is gone you do.” The demon’s casual tone is like a punch in the gut.

“Oh don’t look at me like that! I’ve said we’ll fix it, haven’t I?”

Gabriel nods and gets up.

“Have a shower while you’re waiting,” Crowley shoots over his shoulder.

***

Gabriel walks into the bathroom and snaps off his clothes.

Nothing happens.

He scowls, gets undressed by hand, like a _human,_ and spends an indecent amount of time in the shower to make up for it.

He finally gets out and, rather than snapping himself dry and into clean clothes, towels off and puts his old clothes back on.

He wanders out to the small kitchen to find Crowley at the stove making pancakes. “I don’t eat, as a rule, so there’s not much here. I’ll have to get groceries delivered.”

That will be another security risk.

“Sorry,” he says, sitting down at the table. Crowley turns back to the stove, then sets a plate in front of him. There’s a bottle of maple syrup on the table and nothing else. Gabriel takes it and proceeds to drown his pancakes.

“Leave some for me, yeah?” Crowley says, looking amused, but Gabriel scowls again. He could have conjured up better pancakes than these. Well, OK, he thinks as he takes a bite, maybe not _better,_ but at least with more variation in toppings.

“S’good,” he says, his mouth full, and Crowley smirks.

“Thanks.”

It _is_ good. Gabriel never realized before that eating when you were hungry made the food taste better. But then again he’d never _been_ hungry before.

“So why does Lucifer want you dead?” he asks when his stomach is no longer staging a coup on the rest of his body.

Crowley snorts. “Way I figure it, if Lucifer wins he’ll go after us next. Thus it behooved me to make certain arrangements for my continued survival.”

Gabriel nods. “Sensible.”

“Thank you. Anyway, I had the Colt. I figured if anything could kill Lucifer that could, so I gave it to the Winchesters.”

“Those bozos?” Gabriel scoffs.

“I know, I know, but it was the only thing I could think of.” He pauses. “You sound like you know them.”

“Know them? They _made_ me! Incognito for centuries and I’m uncovered by Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum! Although, to be fair, they had some help from my little brother.”

Crowley purses his lips. “Mm. So anyway, I gave them the Colt, told them to empty it into Lucifer’s head, and it didn’t work.”

Gabriel winces. “Ouch.”

“Yeah. So now I’m on Hell’s most wanted list. They ate my tailor, you know,” he says mournfully and Gabriel does his best to repress his snicker, since he can’t exactly afford to offend the only help on offer.

“Shame.”

Crowley looks at him suspiciously, but if there’s one thing Gabriel’s perfected over the centuries it’s his _Who me?_ look. Crowley just rolls his eyes and goes back to his breakfast.

“What is this place?” Gabriel asks after a few minutes.

The demon shrugs. “I’m in a profitable business. Got several houses scattered around.”

“Which they’re bound to know about,” Gabriel points out, ignoring the part about “business.” He doesn’t want to know.

Crowley grimaces. “I know, but they haven’t found this one yet. I don’t know if they even know about it. I haven’t been here in nearly twenty years.”

“You put wards up?”

Crowley gives him a dirty look. “Of course I did! But it didn’t help with the last four.”

Gabriel pushes his plate away. “Can I look at them?”

Crowley gestures expansively. “Be my guest.”

***

Gabriel crouches on the floor, examining the last of the wards. Crowley’s done a pretty thorough job; he’s used all the wards Gabriel himself would have except those requiring angel blood.

He gets up, dusts off his hands. “There’s nothing I can add to them at the moment,” he reports, and Crowley nods.

Gabriel hesitates. He doesn’t want to be the one to bring it up, but… “About my Grace…”

“Right, sorry. First thing is figuring out what they did. Can you remember the symbols?”

Gabriel frowns. “I think so.”

Crowley brings out a large piece of paper and a pencil and Gabriel starts drawing the equation. He remembers most of the symbols, but some of the elements have more than one symbol and he can’t remember which they were.

Crowley looks over it, then takes the pencil from him and erases one symbol. “It was decomposition by putrefaction, not oxidation.”

Gabriel stares at him. “How do _you_ know about alchemy?”

Crowley huffs out a laugh. “Please! Lead into gold? You _really_ think they managed that without our help?”

Gabriel stiffens. For a moment he’d almost forgotten what Crowley was. “You made deals with them.”

“Don’t act so high and mighty. No one forced them to give their souls away. And I always delivered.”

Gabriel nods and turns away, his lips thin.

***

They need to figure out how to reverse the ritual, and neither of them remembers enough to put the equation together. Plus there’s almost no food in the house.

“We’ll have to order food. I can’t exactly go shopping, and you’d probably collapse,” Crowley says.

Gabriel glares at him. “And what if they possess the delivery boy?”

He shrugs. “I’ll take precautions. Getting the info on alchemy will be trickier. The stuff online isn’t enough to put something together, and we can’t exactly go to the library.”

“We could order a book online,” Gabriel suggests hesitantly.

“And Lucifer’s people’ll track the address.”

Gabriel reaches into his pocket. “I have this,” he says, holding something out to the demon.

Crowley takes it and laughs incredulously. “You can zap up anything you want! What d’you need a credit card for?”

Gabriel shrugs. “I’ve never been caught, and the demons don’t know the alias.”

Crowley grins. “Alright then! You find the book, I’ll order the food!”

***

Gabriel is surprised Crowley has a computer here, much less internet, but there is one, gathering dust in a small room Crowley probably used as an office at one point. He supposes it’s from when he was here before. The connection is slow–he thinks it might even be _dialup_ –but it works. He looks through Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Most of the stuff they have is about the history or psychology of alchemy. The one practical guide is out of stock. He places the order anyway, paying extra for one-day shipping.

“Crowley?”

“Out here.”

He wanders into the living room. “The only book they had that might help was out of stock.”

Crowley grimaces.

“I ordered it, but I dunno when it’ll get here.”

Crowley sighs and nods. “Look, you’re gonna have to bring the food in.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrow. “Why?” If Crowley was setting him up…

“Because,” Crowley says, leaning back in his chair with a self-satisfied smirk, “I’ve spray painted a Devil’s Trap on the bottom of the welcome mat.”

Gabriel grins slowly back at him.

***

Gabriel brings the food in without incident, the deliveryman just a deliveryman, and not a demon bent on revenge.

He and Crowley put it away, in the cabinets and refrigerator.

“Why’d you get so much?” Gabriel asks, sticking a loaf of bread in the cupboard. “I can’t eat all this.”

Crowley nods, leaning over his shoulder to put a can of peas on the top shelf. “I know. But I do eat, I just don’t _need_ to, and since you do, it’s polite.”

His weight is warm against Gabriel’s back, and as he slides away Gabriel shivers.

***

That night Crowley sleeps on the floor again.

“I feel bad kicking you out of your bed.”

“Unless you want to share there’s no alternative.”

Gabriel goes suddenly cold. “N-no, that’s alright.”

Crowley smirks at him. “Thought so."

It takes him awhile to fall asleep, since he’s nowhere near as exhausted as last night, and he has a lot to think about. Crowley…Crowley’s a _demon._ He can’t afford to forget that, not for a moment. No matter if he’s helping him right now, by his very nature Crowley’d always be out for number one and he wouldn’t hesitate to sell Gabriel down the river if he thought he could profit by it. He probably would have already, if he wasn’t on the run himself.

Gabriel’s not thinking clearly. The loss of his Grace has scrambled his brains and he’s seeing things that aren’t there. Crowley’s helping him because he could get something out of it, not because Gabriel needs help, or because he’s a _nice person_ (Gabriel snorts at the thought). If the ritual to restore his Grace doesn’t work Gabriel will be out on his ass.

Ah well. At least he has a week or so before he has to worry about it.

_Gabriel dreams again, of the cold place, of losing his wings, but a door opens, with a light beyond it. He tries to move toward it, but he can’t._

_The light is blocked off by a figure standing in the door, and a voice calls his name. He tries again to move, but he can’t._

_“Gabriel,” the voice insists. “Come on,_ move! _”_

_He moves, getting up slowly, forcing himself to walk towards the door and through it into sunlight, the voice calling encouragement the whole time. He looks at the figure who’d called him._

_It’s Crowley._

Gabriel wakes up in a cold sweat, his mind racing. _No. No, no,_ NO! He can’t be dreaming about Crowley, can’t–

The subject of his panicked thoughts sits up, groans. “Time is it?”

Gabriel shrugs. “I don’t know.” Once he wouldn’t have known what time it was because time didn’t matter to him. Now he doesn’t know what time it is because he’s not within range of a clock.

Crowley pushes back the blankets and stands up. “It’s morning anyway, and looks like you didn’t have any nightmares.”

Gabriel twitches. “Why do you say that?”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “I didn’t get woken up at three in the bloody morning, that’s why!” His eyes narrow. “Why? _Did_ you have a nightmare?”

“Why do you care?”

Crowley holds up his hands, a ‘don’t bite my head off’ gesture. “Were you always this touchy or is it a recent development?”

“Around demons, always.” Gabriel gets out of bed and stalks into the bathroom.

***

When he gets out Crowley’s at the stove again.

“Come here.”

Gabriel eyes him suspiciously. “Why?”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “You don’t know how to cook. I’m gonna teach you.”

Gabriel scoffs. “Why would a demon know how to cook?”

“You have a great many preconceptions about demons,” Crowley says, an amused smirk hovering just out of sight.

“Most of them accurate,” Gabriel shoots back.

“True. But I cook occasionally, when the fancy strikes me.”

Gabriel takes a step closer, almost against his will. “So what are you making?”

“French toast. Here.”

Gabriel accepts the piece of bread the demon hands him. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Dip it in that,” Crowley says, with the impression that he’d just rolled his eyes again where Gabriel couldn’t see

Gabriel stares at the plate. “Is that _egg?_ ”

Crowley sighs. “Yes, it’s egg. Coat the bread in it.”

Dubiously, Gabriel does. When he’s done he gingerly hands the bread to Crowley, who plops it in a pan. “Cook it until it’s brown, then flip it and brown the other side.”

“How will I know it’s brown if I can’t see it?” Gabriel asks.

Crowley shrugs. “You get a feel for it after awhile. Either you burn a piece or two or you don’t cook it long enough and have to flip it again.” He hands Gabriel the spatula. “I need to get dressed.”

“But–” Gabriel protests. It’s no use. Crowley’s gone.

He stares at the bread, which is sizzling faintly. He flips it over, but it’s not done, so he flips it back.

His thoughts turn to Crowley again, and the dream he’d had. It might be nothing; it’s not like he’s dreamed before, so he wouldn’t know. And Crowley _had_ rescued him from the demons, so that part was accurate. But there was something else, something disturbing. He hadn’t been able to even move before Crowley came, and even though he hadn’t recognized him at first, there was something about him that said _safe._ Which was ridiculous, Crowley was a _demon._ He’d never be _safe._

An acrid smell reaches his nostrils, and he curses, realizing the toast is burning. He flips it over hastily. It isn’t badly burned, but he resolves to keep his mind on what he’s doing.

By the time Crowley appears again he has a stack of eight pieces of toast. There’s the one he burned, and a couple that are underdone because he didn’t want to risk burning them again, but most of them are alright, he thinks.

Crowley takes a piece of toast and cuts off a corner, chewing thoughtfully. “Not bad, for a first attempt.”

Gabriel squashes down the part of himself that’s pleased at the compliment and dumps half a box of powdered sugar on his toast.

***

He doesn’t know what to do with himself for the rest of the day. He ends up researching alchemy on the web.

The pages take forever to load over the ancient connection. But there’s nothing he can do to make it faster, so he sits and twiddles his thumbs as another page of symbols loads.

Like Crowley had said, there isn’t anything here that can help him, so he gives up after a couple hours.

He stands up, wincing as his back protests. He’d never gotten sore when he was an angel. He debates getting drunk, to pass the time, but discards the idea. Crowley would probably sneer at him for being pathetic. Although why the demon’s opinion should matter to him…

Dammit, he has to stop thinking about Crowley! He’s a demon, and likely to stab him in the middle of the night. End of story.

His stomach growls and he goes to ransack the fridge.

***

That night Gabriel doesn’t dream at all, and Crowley actually has to wake him up in the morning.

When he feels someone shaking his shoulder he bolts awake, his heart racing. Crowley holds up his hands, muttering something about twitchy ex-angels.

He flips Crowley off and heads into the bathroom. Eating isn’t the only thing he has to do now that he’s human. The first time it’d taken him a few moments to realize what the sensations meant, and now he tries to get through it as quickly as possible. He doesn’t know how humans can be so blasé about eliminating…it’s disgusting.

He looks in the mirror, rubbing a hand over his face. He’s got the ugly beginnings of a beard, and it itches, but he doesn’t know how to shave, and like _hell_ is he letting Crowley near him with a razor.

He doesn’t know what to do with himself. All his normal methods of entertainment vanished with his Grace, and Crowley has only the PC, which Gabriel swears was built in 1980. He doesn’t have a TV or a CD player or even many books. He sighs and heads out to the kitchen.

“Might as well teach you to cook,” Crowley says, when they’ve finished breakfast.

“What?” Other than the French toast (which he’s still annoyed that Crowley threw at him out of nowhere) he hasn’t made anything that he couldn’t put in the microwave or toaster.

Crowley shrugs. “It’s something to do.”

So Crowley teaches him to make pot roast; how to peel and chop the potatoes and carrots and cut the onion in half. As soon as the skin of the onion breaks Gabriel tears up, but Crowley doesn’t comment, only smirks as he adds stir fry sauce and horseradish to the pot.

Gabriel dumps the vegetables in with the meat when he’s done. “What now?”

“Now we let it cook for a couple of hours,” Crowley says, turning down the heat.

Gabriel wanders over to the computer and checks his email. No notification of shipment. He goes to the website and finds the book he ordered. When the page loads it’s still out of stock. He sighs.

***

It’s another week before he gets an email telling him his order’s been shipped. Crowley’s taught him how to cook lemon chicken and lasagna in addition to the pot roast. Gabriel’s surprised to find he enjoys cooking; it takes his mind off his situation.

Or maybe it’s just Crowley.

He still dreams occasionally, and they’re still troubling, although he’s only dreamt about losing his Grace once since the last time. Some of the dreams are even pleasant, but he finds the whole experience disconcerting, since most of the time he doesn’t _know_ he’s dreaming. It always takes him awhile to reorient once he wakes up.

The most disturbing dreams center around Crowley. He hasn’t had one of _those dreams_ yet, thank his absent Father, but the dreams he has are bad enough. Crowley moved back to the couch when his nightmares stopped, and on the one hand Gabriel’s grateful, since it means he won’t accidentally let anything slip, but on the other hand he’s nervous having Crowley somewhere else, which is troubling all on its own.

He still tries to avoid thinking about the demon as much as possible. It’s hard not to, though, when he’s spending all day with him and sometimes Gabriel finds his thoughts wandering in really disturbing directions, focusing on Crowley’s lips or his neck or the flash of his wrists as he gesticulates. He blames his humanity and sexual frustration, and tries to keep from dwelling on it.

Neither of them has discussed the ritual, or what will happen if it doesn’t work. Or, for that matter, if it does. Crowley seems supremely unconcerned that Gabriel might smite him once he gets his Grace back, although it might be an act, and Gabriel tries not to think about whether Crowley will throw him out if they’re not able to restore his Grace.

He closes down the email with mixed feelings. On the one hand, they’ll have what they need for the ritual. On the other hand, the ritual might not be reversible and he might never get his Grace back. Once they start preparing he could be just as close to failure as success.

“Book’ll be here tomorrow,” he tells Crowley, who nods.

***

That night Gabriel stares at the ceiling. Crowley had found a clock radio somewhere and stuck it next to the bed, but there must be something wrong with it, since the last time he looked at it it said 11:58, but after about half an hour he looked over and it said 12:05.

He sighs. Tomorrow he’ll know for sure if he’ll be stuck like this permanently, if he’ll have to worry about things like arthritis and cataracts and _death._

 _This must be insomnia,_ he thinks dimly, as the clock finally ticks over to one AM. He debates going out and waking Crowley up, then imagines what the demon would say if he does and discards the idea.

 _Yeah,_ that _conversation would go well,_ Gabriel thinks sarcastically. _”I can’t sleep. I’m worried about tomorrow.” “And this is my problem_ why?”

He turns over so he’s facing the wall and tries again to fall asleep.

***

He must have fallen asleep eventually, since someone’s shaking him awake. He groans and burrows into the pillow.

“Come on, get up! Big day today!”

Gabriel groans again, reminded of the reason he didn’t get to sleep until well after midnight, but drags himself out of bed.

***

He feels a little more refreshed after a shower, but he’s still vaguely nauseous and blinking a lot.

“Here.” Crowley plops something down in front of him.

Gabriel stares at the coffee for a moment. _Well, this stuff_ is _supposed to wake you up…_

He takes a drink and splutters. The coffee is bitter, not to mention scalding, and he burns his mouth. “That’s _vile!_ ”

“You don’t drink it black, idiot! I just gave it to you like that so you could add what you wanted!”

Gabriel scowls at Crowley. “I’ve never had coffee before, how should I know what to put in it?” That wasn’t strictly true. He had had coffee before, but it was always Starbucks-style, iced, with things like whipped cream and caramel and chocolate mixed in. There was no reason to drink coffee plain unless you needed to wake up.

With a little milk, a lot of sugar and some time to cool the coffee’s slightly more palatable. Gabriel drinks it and does feel more alert.

He spends the next ten minutes shredding his napkin, ignoring the Danish in front of him.

“Eat.”

“I’m not hungry.” His stomach is tight and roiling and there’s a burning in his throat. He wonders if he’s going to be sick.

“Eat anyway.”

Under Crowley’s baleful glare he finishes the Danish, which seems content to stay where it’s put, thank God.

***

After that there’s nothing to do but wait. Gabriel sits on the couch, shooting glances at the door every thirty seconds. Crowley’s in a chair nearby, idly leafing through a month-old newspaper.

“For God’s _sake,_ will you stop _doing_ that?” Crowley bursts out suddenly.

Gabriel starts, and only then realizes he’s been restlessly drumming his fingers on the end table. “Sorry,” he says, somewhat sheepishly, and folds his hands in his lap.

Crowley ignores him, goes back to his paper.

When the doorbell rings Gabriel nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Well, answer it,” Crowley snaps after a moment.

When Gabriel opens the door there’s no one there, but there’s a package on the doorstep. He picks it up, suddenly unsure. If the demons figured out where they were there could be anything in there.

“Are you going to open it anytime soon?” Crowley drawls.

“What if it’s booby-trapped?” Gabriel asks nervously. There’d be no way for him to tell anymore.

Crowley snorts and takes the package, running his hands over it. “It’s fine.”

They open the box to find a paperback book covered with lots of knotwork with two dragons in the center. Real Alchemy: A Primer of Practical Alchemy the cover declares.

Crowley snorts. “Why’d they need to use the word ‘alchemy’ twice? And who the hell designed the cover?”

Gabriel shrugs. “It’s the best one I could find.”

Crowley hands him the book and leaves. When he comes back he’s got the paper they’d written the original ritual on, several blank pieces of paper and a pen.

Gabriel looks through the book. He skips the introduction and goes right to the index of symbols.

Crowley’s scribbling on the paper. Gabriel looks over. “East? What’s that for?”

“We’re trying to reverse the spell, aren’t we?” Crowley asks, nettled.

“Leave that part the way it is. You need to keep west, water and silver.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re part of the identification. Those are all symbols associated with me.”

Crowley shrugs and modifies the equation.

***

When they’re done they pull the carpet in Crowley’s living room aside (Crowley bitching all the while) and sketch the symbols in chalk on the floor.

Rather than decomposition, they have the symbol for union through multiplication. They also put in mercury for the omnipresent spirit of life, and sulfur for the connection between high and low (Gabriel twitched at that, since he associates sulfur with demons, but it makes sense). At the end was the symbol for “angel,” or maybe it was for “Grace;” since Gabriel had never seen the symbol before two weeks ago he can’t say.

Crowley straightens up from chalking the last symbol. “If we’re going to parallel the original ritual as exactly as possible you should probably be in a ring of holy oil.”

“Oh, _hell_ no!” Gabriel spits out without having to think.

Crowley looks wounded. “Why? Don’t you trust me?”

“No,” Gabriel says shortly and Crowley grins. “And anyway, where would we find holy oil?”

Crowley sighs. “Fine. You ready?”

Gabriel nods and steps into the circle, just then realizing they don’t know the incantation. “What are you–”

“Shut up, I’m trying to figure that out! The original spell was in Latin…” Crowley thinks a minute, then murmurs, “ _Praevium incantamen invertō._ ”

Nothing happens.

“OK, nothing so simple as a direct reversal,” Crowley says thoughtfully, before Gabriel can step out of the circle. “Let me think.”

After another few moments he tries, “ _Restituō tē grātiam._ ”

Still nothing.

“Crowley–” Gabriel begins, sure now that he’ll never get his Grace back.

“Thought I told you to shut up,” Crowley mutters distractedly, then, “ _Redintegrō tē grātiam._ ”

The symbols spark slightly, and Crowley repeats the incantation. They begin to glow with a green-gold light, and, as Crowley continues chanting, the light rushes up and into Gabriel.

He staggers, and Crowley reaches across to steady him.

“You alright?”

Gabriel takes a moment to take stock of himself. The lightheadedness is already gone and he feels…

He snaps his fingers and his beard vanishes. He whoops.

“It worked!” He grabs hold of Crowley’s arms and spins around.

“Let go of me, you maniac!” Crowley complains, but his lips are twitching.

Gabriel sobers. Crowley’s a demon; that’s all too obvious now, the demonic shape twisting beneath his skin. He doesn’t seem as twisted as some, but still. By rights he should smite him and leave. But he doesn’t really go in for smiting anymore, and anyway it would be incredibly rude, not to mention ungrateful, since Crowley’s the reason he has his Grace back in the first place. He lets go of Crowley, reluctantly.

“You wanted some wards put up?”

***

Gabriel finishes tracing the last sigil and glances at his palm. The shallow slash, bleeding until now, heals up. He turns to Crowley. “Doubt the demons will be able to see you through that.”

Crowley nods. “Thanks.”

Gabriel raises an eyebrow. “Just keeping up my end of the bargain.”

“Right, yeah.” Crowley coughs, then continues, “So I guess now you’ve got your wings back you’ll be flying out of here.”

Gabriel considers. He really _should_ leave. There’s nothing holding him here. But his confusion about Crowley hadn’t gone away when he got his Grace back and it’s annoying him. And since he’s never been the type to look before he leaps he crashes his lips together with Crowley’s.

Crowley recoils slightly, then growls and kisses back, all tongue and teeth and feral possession.

Despite the fact that the couch is right there, Crowley pushes him into the bedroom, Gabriel taking the opportunity to remove some of his more readily detachable clothes on the way.

When they get into the bedroom Gabriel pushes Crowley onto the bed.

“Oh like _hell_ are you going to top!” Crowley snarls, as Gabriel pulls his shirt out of his pants.

“Why not?” Gabriel breathes in his ear. “Afraid to let an angel fuck you?”

Crowley rolls them over so that he’s on top. “Don’t flatter yourself!”

“Well then.” Gabriel snaps his fingers and not only is he on top again, they’re both naked. He revels briefly in the fact that he has his Grace back, that he’s _able_ to do that.

Crowley sighs. “Fine. Since you’ve just been through such a _terrible_ ordeal,” he drawls sarcastically.

“Damn straight.”

He conjures up a bottle of lube and starts prepping Crowley.

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” Crowley tells him, and he’s right, he’s more than loose enough to fuck without any preparation. Gabriel does it anyway, more for the noises it pulls out of Crowley, he tells himself, than that he wants to make Absolutely Sure he won’t hurt him…

“For fuck’s sake, get _on_ with it!” Crowley growls, so Gabriel pulls his fingers out and slicks up.

He slides in in one long slick push and holds himself still with an effort.

“I’m not gonna break, you know!”

Gabriel pulls out and pushes back in, and Crowley’s hands clutch at his back. His hips judder forward again.

He leans down to kiss Crowley again, but the demon tilts his head away, so Gabriel settles for licking behind his ear instead.

He can feel his wings straining as Crowley’s fingers twitch on his back, and before he can warn him they burst free.

“ _Fuck!_ ” Crowley pulls his hands back as if they’d been burned…and they might have been, Gabriel’s not sure. “Are you trying to _kill_ me?!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Gabriel tries to tuck his wings away again, but they won’t go. He settles for folding them as small as possible, but they’re still nearly three feet across.

He grabs Crowley’s hands and runs his fingers over them, Crowley protesting the whole while. There are no burns, scars or other marks. “You must not have made contact with them,” Gabriel says, reluctantly giving Crowley his hands back. He doesn’t know how that’s possible, though. Crowley’d had his hands nearly flat on his back when his wings came out, and he doubts even demons have reflexes that fast.

Crowley buries his hands in the sheets, but he’s staring at Gabriel’s wings with an expression that, on anyone else, Gabriel would have called awe. He looks completely different without his usual smug expression.

Gabriel pushes in again, and Crowley’s hands come up to rest on his hips, before moving down to the bed again. Gabriel’s wings are folded back, nowhere near his hips, but it looks like Crowley’s not taking any chances.

“I think you could touch them…if you want,” Gabriel pants around his thrusts.

Crowley stares at him. “Are you _mad!?_ ”

“No really! You had to have touched them before and you didn’t get burned.”

“If I lose a hand…” Crowley warns him.

“If you lose a hand I’ll reconstruct it.” Not that he’s sure if he can do that with demons…

Crowley’s left hand comes up, tentatively, and strokes across the outermost feathers. Gabriel hisses and his hips jerk forward.

“Oh you have got to be _kidding_ me!” Crowley bursts out.

“Nope,” Gabriel gasps smugly.

Crowley’s other hand comes up and cards hesitantly through his feathers. Gabriel feels them twitch at the touch, far too light and teasing. “You’re not gonna pull them out, you know.”

Crowley bites his lip. “They look so–”

“They’re not. We’d have had a fine time going into battle if our wings were as fragile as you seem to think.”

Crowley’s hands scratch through the outer feathers, burrowing into the down beneath and clutching. Gabriel moans and throws his head back.

He’s close, he can feel it, and he can feel that his Grace is going to burst out of him when he comes, just like his wings did. He’s not sure what that’ll do to Crowley if he sees it. A human would be blinded. A demon might well be reduced to ash. “When I tell you to close your eyes, do it!”

Crowley peers at him for a second, sees he’s serious, and nods.

Gabriel doesn’t need to tell him though, since he shifts his angle slightly and Crowley moans and clenches around him, shutting his eyes tight. The sight sets Gabriel off and he comes, Grace roaring out, shattering the window, the bedside lamp and the overhead light.

Crowley stares at him. “What the fuck?”

Gabriel coughs, slightly embarrassed. “Sorry,” he says, drawing away. With a snap the lights and windows are good as new, and, yeah, he’s gonna be appreciating his powers for the foreseeable future.

He looks over at Crowley, an eyebrow rising in surprise. He can still tell he’s a demon, but the shadow is faint, more a dim stain than the twisted ruin of most demons. “You look better,” he blurts out without thinking.

Crowley’s eyes narrow. “What?”

“I mean even before you didn’t look as bad as most demons–”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Crowley interrupts him.

“Your true form. ’Snot as bad as some I’ve seen.”

“Like who, pray?”

Gabriel shrugs. “Demon who did the ritual, for one thing.”

Crowley snorts. “That pup? I was collecting souls before her grandfather was an idle daydream!”

“Just telling it like I see it. And like I said, you look better now.” He grins crookedly. “Sex with me seems to agree with you.”

Crowley scowls at him. “Don’t get any ideas!”

“Excuse me?”

“About reforming the demon, or saving my soul, or some such rubbish. I _like_ my job, thank you very much, and I intend to continue doing it!”

“Did I say anything about redemption? Was never really my gig even before I came down here, and even if it was I doubt I’m qualified anymore, what with the things I’ve gotten up to as a pagan god.”

“Good!”

The silence stretches then. He should go, he really should, there’s no reason for him to stay here anymore. “Well, the wards should protect you, so you don’t need me hanging around anymore.”

“I should think not! Much longer with you in the house and I’d go barking.”

Gabriel grins and gets up, snapping on his clothes.

“But–”

“Hmmm?” He turns back to Crowley, who’s sitting with the sheet pooled around his waist.

“If…you wanted to come by again sometime I wouldn’t mind.”

Gabriel grins again. “Maybe I will.”


End file.
